Luxury Gets a Makeover: China’s Market Rebounds as Gen Z and AI Fuel Secondhand Surge
Luxury is shifting from pure status to trust, value, and reuse—powered by younger shoppers and AI.
What is this trend?
Luxury demand is rebounding around authenticity, experience, and value while resale becomes a mainstream channel, forcing brands to compete on trust, circularity, and digital convenience.
- Gen Z and millennials are normalizing secondhand luxury as a smart, status-aware purchase path.
- AI is making resale easier to price, verify, sort, and personalize at scale.
- Brands are moving from one-way selling to circular models with trade-in, resale, and authentication.
- China’s recovery reflects a broader pivot toward local spending and experience-led luxury.
- Resale’s growth is reshaping loyalty and distribution as traditional retail loses its monopoly on prestige.
What’s the latest?
Zalando and Vestiaire Collective’s alliance is breaking down barriers to luxury resale, merging authentication and convenience for millions across Europe.
How it developed earlier updates
China’s luxury market is rebounding as Gen Z and AI-fueled resale platforms spark a fivefold surge in secondhand spending and force brands to reinvent themselves for a new era of experience-driven, di
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